Spitting Image Collective is a group of Minnesota composers that came together in 2013 to build a strong community of composers, performers and listeners in the Twin Cities metro area. Since then, the collective has commissioned numerous new works from local Minnesota composers and presented them in concerts throughout the Twin Cities featuring many of the area’s most talented new music performers. Dedicated to community outreach and education, Spitting Image’s educational programs introduce learners of all ages to new music through listening, performing, and composing, including residencies at the University of St. Thomas, Minneapolis Public Schools, and workshops for the public. In addition, Spitting Image hosts community social events to encourage the formation of professional relationships among composers, and opportunities for composers to receive artistic feedback from peers. 

Spitting Image Collective members are: Katherine Bergman, Joshua Clausen, and Daniel Nass.

Lauded for providing “a once-in-a-lifetime experience for adventurous concertgoers,” Zeitgeist is a new music chamber ensemble comprised of two percussion, piano and woodwinds. One of the longest established new music groups in the country, Zeitgeist commissions and presents a wide variety of new music for audiences in the Twin Cities and on tour. Always eager to explore new artistic frontiers, Zeitgeist collaborates with poets, choreographers, directors, visual artists and sound artists of all types to create imaginative new work that challenges the boundaries of traditional chamber music. The members of Zeitgeist are: Heather Barringer, percussion; Patti Cudd, percussion; Pat O’Keefe, woodwinds; and Nicola Melville piano. Information about the ensemble and its activities can be found at www.zeitgeistnewmusic.org.

Michael Betz is a composer, producer, and multi-instrumentalist from Mason City, IA, currently based in the Twin Cities, MN. His compositions are not limited to the concert stage and have appeared in a variety of media, including Android apps by developer Nathan Tornquist and the YouTube series Chadtronic. As a keyboardist, he is comfortable in a variety of musical contexts and maintains an active performance schedule as a jazz pianist, collaborative pianist, and sideman (recently appearing with the Fringe Pipes and George Faber). He also performs as a solo improvisational synthesizer player and has played Twin Cities experimental music series such as Drone Not Drones, the Tourniquet Noise Series, and Khyber Pass Thursdays. Betz served as principal percussionist in the St. Olaf Band and St. Olaf Orchestra and continues to make appearances with local ensembles, including the Wayzata Symphony Orchestra and Bloomington Symphony Orchestra. As a chorister, he is the bass section leader with Magnum Chorum and also regularly sings with MPLS (imPulse), Aliro Voices, and PopUp Choir. He teaches private piano, guitar, and and beginning orchestral string lessons through the Minnetonka Music Academy.

Betz is a recipient of the American Composer Forum’s Jerome Fund for New Music grant. His orchestra work Enclosure was awarded Honorable Mention in the Minnesota Orchestra Composer Institute. Four of his works have received finalist designation in the ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer Awards. He has also received recognition in calls for scores from the Solo and Chamber Timpanist’s Initiative and Symphony Number One. He has received commissions from the Source Song Festival, Magnum Chorum, St. Olaf College, and Mason City High School, among others. His music has been performed in Europe and the United States and has been heard locally in many Twin Cities classical music venues such as Westminster Hall, Antonello Hall, Studio Z, the Baroque Room, and the Schubert Club Courtroom Concert Series. Performers of his music include Aliro Voices, RenegadeEnsemble, Neoteric Chamber Winds, pianist Mary Jo Gothmann, baritone Alan Dunbar, flutist Yoshi Weinberg, the Vine Orchestra, the St. Olaf Band and St. Olaf Orchestra, Una Vocis Choral Ensemble, the Mason City High School Symphonic Band and Concert Choir (IA), and chamber ensembles from the University of Iowa and Roseville Area High School (MN).

Betz holds a B.M. in Theory and Composition from St. Olaf College, where he studied with Timothy Mahr and Justin Merritt. He also studied composition with David Conte at the EAMA-Nadia Boulanger Summer Institute. Betz is a member of ASCAP and the American Composers Forum.

Katherine Bergman is a Minnesota-based composer who draws on literature, environmentalism, and found materials to create work that has been described as hypnotic and visceral. 

RenegadeEnsemble is a flexible chamber ensemble based in the Twin Cities of Minnesota. Dedicated to the performance of new music, RenegadeEnsemble programs works by local and emerging composers, as well as established living composers.  For more information visit www.renegadeensemble.org or email us at renegadeensemble@gmail.com

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